Sharp Galapagos tablets canned

Not sure how upset many people are going to be over this one, but Sharp's uber-expensive, currently Japan-only media tablets are set to be canned.

The Galapagos series of tablets were released late last year over in Japan and were pegged to arrive in the US, but never quite made the trip abroad.

The tablets were entirely cloud based and behaved very much like an ereader. They came in either a mobile 5.5-inch version of a much larger 10.8-inch tablet form. The screen resolution was what really had us excited about the Sharp tablets, however, as the larger version featured a 1366 x 800 screen with the smaller sporting a 1024 x 600 LCD. There is also the Galapagos 7-inch tablet complete with Android 3.2 which will continue to be sold in Japan.

Unfortunately our translation skills aren't massively brilliant when it comes to Japanese, but a quick Google translate of one of Sharp's web pages reveals both the 5.5- and 10-inch will finish sales on 30 September.

Not a massive problem we suppose as we are pretty much spoilt for choice right now on the tablet front, but still would be nice to see something from Sharp. We imagine one of the main reasons was the cost of the devices, the 10-incher priced in at no less than 54,800 yen at launch. That works out at roughly £450 for a tablet with just 8GB of microSDHC memory included.

The baby of the Lint team, Hunter has been a tech fan since he bought his first MiniDisc..and what a waste of money that was. He began writing about electronics at the age of 16 and hasn't stopped since. Nowadays he fulfils his mobile phone and gaming obsession whilst attempting to distract people from his bizarre name. Regular meetings with the Gladiators crew see Hunter often returning to work battered and bruised. Considers himself a music obsessive, was once the most highly decorated scout in the country. Fan of trousers.